Join friends and family to take in the sights and sounds of the Chinese New Year markets – right in the heart of Lancaster! Market Street will be packed with a range of food, drink, crafts and gift stalls.
There will also be live performances in Market Square throughout the day!
Northern Dragons Lion Dance and Martial Arts demonstrations; Chinese Dance Group with Tiffany Guo; Si Dadu Chinese Martial Arts; Guzheng music performance by Wei Ranyin; More Music Long Walk Chinese Orchestra and drumming workshops; John Ward School of Korean Martial Arts performances and demonstrations; Chinese God of Fortune spreading goodwill and luck; Taylors funfair rides; and more arts and crafts activities.
The Hua Xian Chinese School presents an afterrnoon of free fun activities for children and adults at Lancaster Library.
Come down, get creative and enjoy learning about Chinese culture through language, arts and crafts workshops!
Try Chinese calligraphy, watercolour painting, origami, papercutting and also learn to speak or write in Chinese!
You can also meet the Chinese God of Fortune (Cai Shen)!
Activities lead by Ms Pu Jingjing, Ms Wu Chunyan and Mr Si Dadu.
The exhibition – Memento – by Ed Pien, is a walk-through environment created from knotted ropes, paper-cut silhouettes, video projections, rotating mirrors, sand-bags, shadows, and sound. In the dim light, the visitor plunges into another world, navigating their way amidst the shadows beneath a rope net canopy, while projected images spin around the gallery walls.
Memento was developed from his research into the plight of illegal immigrants who take great risks in the hope of achieving a better life. These people often have to live ‘ghost-like’, hidden from society, such as the Chinese cockle pickers in Morecambe Bay, the ‘Faujis’ from India living in the UK without identities, and the thousands of North Africans who try to cross the Mediterranean in small boats, some of whom perish on the way.
Memento is a continuation of Pien’s interest in the otherworldly, invisibility, disappearance, and journeys. It poignantly reflects on the displaced, forgotten and unseen, yet remains poetically open-ended.
Ed Pien was born in Taiwan and moved to Canada aged 11. He has exhibited internationally including the Drawing Centre, New York; La Biennale de Montreal; Centro Nacional de las Artes, Mexico City; plAAy, Blackburn (UK); The Goethe Institute, Berlin; and Himalya Art Gallery, Chongqing, China.
Memento was commissioned by the Chinese Art Centre in Manchester and supported by the Hua Xian Chinese Society.
To celebrate Chinese New Year, The Dukes has partnered with the Hua Xian Chinese Society to present a season of contemporary Chinese films.
Directed by Peter Ho-Sun Chan
2007, China Hong Kong, 108mins, Subtitles
Starring: Andy Lau, Jet Li
A drama of friendship, ambition and betrayal set during a bloody civil war in 19th-century China. Three blood brothers find their oath tested by battle and personal rivalry, during a time of great political upheaval. Based on the classic tale ‘The Assassination of Ma’ from the Qing Dynasty.
Directed by Sheng Ding
2010, China, 95mins, Subtitles
Starring: Jackie Chan, Leehom Wang
A comedy road movie with a healthy dose of kung fu action and adventure. Set 2000 years ago in the Warring States Period, only two men survive an epic battle. The old soldier kidnaps the young general of an enemy state and takes him on a long journey home to collect the reward.
Directed by Sue Williams
2009, China USA, 106mins, Subtitles
An intimate look into the lives of nine young people living in China. Young & Restless in China charts the lives of nine people coming of age over a period of 4 years, giving a unique insight into China’s fast changing political and economic landscape.
Directed by Xiaogang Feng
2010, China, 135mins, Subtitles
Starring: Jingchu Zhang, Doaming Chen
One of the most successful Chinese films of all time and the country’s entry for the 2011 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Aftershock is the powerful and epic story of a family separated as a result of the Tangshan Earthquake in 1976.
Presented by Live at LICA, Lancaster University.
The astonishing virtuoso is one of the world’s leading guitarists. Her programme for ‘Forty Degrees North’ explores the tantalising idea that Beijing and Madrid share the same latitude through a beguiling selection of her own arrangements.
There will be an opportunity to meet Xuefei Yang at 6.45pm.
She will be performing the following pieces:
Presented by Live at LICA, Lancaster University.
‘Bengal Tiger, Shanghai Dragon’ combines sagas, time-cycles and inflected vocal styles from India and Bangladesh and ancient classical show-pieces and folk tunes of China with jazz improvisation, latin rhythms and surprising harmonic twists.
The 9 piece line-up features Grand Union’s Indian and Bangladeshi musicians. A huge success at the London Jazz Festival, this is a unique multi-cultural show not to be missed.
There is an opportunity to meet the artists from the Grand Union Orchestra at 6.45pm
‘East’ a pop-up art exhibition by artists of East Asian heritage from different backgrounds. Working together, they will transform a space from ordinary retail shop to a new creative space in which you can explore.
Across two weeks, artists will interact with the space – exhibiting work and creating new original pieces or respond to others work.
Nothing is planned and the space will evolve organically with each intervention by an artist.
Each invited artist will be unveiled in the shop front window with a description of their work as the project proceeds.
One of the most established Chinese Opera Troupes in the UK – the Manchester Cantonese Operatics Society – present an evening of traditional Cantonese Opera.
This is a unique opportunity to experience a form of Chinese performing arts with centuries of tradition for the first time in Lancaster at the Dukes Theatre. Combining powerful vocals and dramatic narrative with exquisite costumes and make-up, this show will explore Chinese opera through five specially selected plays each accompanied by live music performed by an ensemble of Chinese instruments including the Erhu, Dizi, Yangqin and percussion.
To celebrate the Chinese New Year, The Dukes has partnered with the Hua Xian Chinese Society to present a season of contemporary Chinese films.